Abstract
The authors analyze the nexus between temporary agency work (TAW) and firm performance. Compared to Hirsch and Mueller (2012, The Productivity Effect of Temporary Agency Work: Evidence from German Panel Data. Economic Journal 122 (562): F216-F235) and Nielen and Schiersch (2014, Temporary Agency Work and Firm Competitiveness: Evidence from German Manufacturing Firms. Industrial Relations 53: 365–393), the authors support a concave relationship between the TAW share and productivity, but find a convex relationship between the TAW share and unit labor costs, instead of a u-shape. Moreover, a new finding is that the correlation between the TAW share and profitability is only moderate.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the editor and two reviewers of the journal for their helpful comments as well as the authors of the replicated studies, Boris Hirsch, Steffen Müller, Sebastian Nielen, and Alexander Schiersch. Please contact John P. Weche for details of the data and empirical analysis.
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Supplementary Material
The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2018-0038).
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